Jailed Panhandle woman accused of murdering baby

Published Thursday, May 24, 2001

FORT WALTON BEACH (AP) -- A woman in a state prison for trying to kill one of her babies in what a prosecutor called a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy has been charged with murdering another in Illinois.

Authorities there have begun extradition proceedings and expect to have Kelsey Smith returned to Illinois by mid-June. She was sentenced in Okaloosa County last year and is serving a 12-year sentence in a Broward County prison.

Smith, 23, was indicted for first-degree murder last month in Shelby County, Ill., after an investigation aided by Panhandle authorities.

She could face a death sentence if convicted of suffocating her 14-month-old daughter, Madyson, in September 1996 at Windsor, Ill., about 150 miles south of Chicago.

In Florida, she had pleaded no contest to attempted first-degree murder and four counts of felony child abuse for trying to suffocate another daughter in 1997. That was before she lost custody of the child, now 4 years old, at 8 months to her former husband.

As part of her sentence, Smith agreed to be sterilized.

Assistant State Attorney David Fleet said there were parallels in the cases, but his Illinois counterpart declined to discuss details.

Fleet attributed the Florida case to Munchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a parent creates symptoms of illness or injury in a child to get attention.